Wednesday, August 16, 2006

The Only Analysis That Matters - SEC Part #2

As promised, here's the rest of the SEC rankings - which will complete all the major conferences. I'll do a wrap up with some independant and small conference mascot in addition to announcing the conference OMG WINNAR!!111! in a soon to come final column on this subject.

Louisiana State Tiger

Strengths: He's a tiger. A fully grown tiger with fangs and all. The current "Mike" is only the fifth tiger that has represented LSU since 1936, which is very impressive when you think of it - they take good care of their tigers down in the bayou. Mike stalking in his enclosure on a sweaty deep black night in front of 90,000 drunken crazy cajuns in Death Valley is one of the premiere home field experiences in all of college football. Nobody other than cajuns would have a live 500lb+ predator on the sideline, but for some reason it seems a natural fit with LSU.

Weaknesses: None. Even the generic "Tigers" is excusable when you are named after a Civil War unit from New Orleans that wore uniforms like [this].

Rating: Not even possible of sucking. Mike the Tiger is the best mascot in all of college football.

Ole Miss Rebel

Strengths: Well, there isn't a mascot since Colonel Reb was banned from sporting events by the school. (you can read the whole saga [here])Weaknesses: When you have 40,000 people qualified to vote for a new mascot and only 2,400 actually do ... either nobody cares, or you have terrible choices like [this] and [this].

Rating: Sucks beyond belief. Get with the program Ole Miss, with some of the best looking women on the planet - just get one in her Sunday best and make her the mascot. That would instantly vault you up the list.

Mississippi State Bulldog

Strengths: Again, another live bulldog. While Uga gets all the attention, it's hard to remember that there's another live bulldog in the same conference - and just as cool.

Weaknesses: Bully might be an even lamer and unimaginative name than Uga.

Rating: Very cool. Starkville might not have the same renown and name recognition that Oxford and the Grove have, but it's home to the best mascot in the state, that's for sure.

South Carolina Gamecock

Strengths: Besides being the stuff of Col. Sanders dreams? It's unique, and this rating system is skewed that way. I'm not aware of another Gamecock at any level of sports, so that's gotta be going for it. Violent mascots are always preferable to placid ones as well, and birds trained to kill each other with razors strapped to their legs are cool by me.

Weaknesses: Seriously, the costume sucks. It's a big bag/skirt thing with a goofy head, and a really unoriginal name - "Cocky".

Rating: I know it won a national mascot of the year competition recently, but it still sucks. The whole hoop skirt thing went out in the '80's. The 1880's. Cockabooses though? Those don't suck.

Tennessee Hound

Strengths: Since there's two bulldogs in the SEC alone, a bluetick hound gets the nod as the most unique live dog mascot I know of. "Smokey" makes a splendid sight in his checkered blanket and with his loud and dinstinctive howl is one of the reasons why gameday in Neyland is such a treat.

Weaknesses: Is surrounded by people from Tennessee, which frankly isn't the poor dogs fault.

Rating: Great mascot. A bit light on tradition compared to one like Mike the Tiger, but still in the upper tier of college mascots.

Vanderbilt Commodore

Strengths: Commodores is a cool name!

Weaknesses: Everything about this abortion of a costume from the creepy oversized head to the wierd angle the hat is at and the gloves and tuxedo pants that look like sweats. The "oversized head on a human body" mascot costume style is the one we dislike the most, and this is one of the worst offenders.

9 Comments:

ok, ok, who REALLY cares about division 1-AA anyways? I come from a city with a 1-AA school and the state school (Tennessee) is still what everybody cares about. good call on mike the tiger and smokey tho, 2 classic southern mascots. Too bad notre dame isn't in a conference, yet another great unique mascot. Go Vols and Irish!

Further besmirching Vanderbilt's use of the Commodore mascot is the fact that the university's founder, Cornelius Vanderbilt, never served in the military and thus never achieved the rank of "commodore" or anything else. He was just some rich asshole who wanted people to call him "Commodore," and he made that the mascot so that people would call him that.

Whats really bad about cocky, is they have a Mrs. Cocky. Yes, a female Gamecock. She is in the same outfit only with a bow in on the head. When someone shows me a female rooster, I won't think Mrs. Cocky is just Cocky's tranny lover